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About the Manual

The Nerd Manual is meant to be both a useful resource for nerds and a guide for the people involved with nerds. If you're a nerd you can find information here that will help you improve your life and perhaps better understand yourself. If you're close friends with, dating, or married to a nerd, I want to give you insight into things nerds do that a lot of people have difficulty understanding.

I hope to avoid offending anyone--either nerd or non-nerd--but please understand that the manual will get into some sensitive topics, stray into contentious territories, and even use stereotypes to illustrate points. It's OK to disagree with something, but keep your comments civil.

2017-10-14

You need more than dual Ludwig Silver Sparkle kicks to swing like a spider, man.

Welcome to "Nerd Rated", a new segment where I rate things of allegedly nerdy stature.

This article tackles songs that claim to be about Spider-Man.

Here’s how this works: I’m including songs that suggest a connection to Spider-Man, either in the title or the lyrics, and unlike some Internet outlets I’m not including TV show or movie theme songs because, come on, that’s just lazy.

Oh, and I’m not embedding from Youtube because the videos will probably be deleted for copyright infringement, so all links go to Spotify.

Each song gets a short review explaining what it’s about and why you might want to listen to (or avoid) it. Each song also gets three ratings. Replay value is totally subjective. Heroic stature is based on how well the song captures the comic book hero mythos, but in some cases a song can score higher if it has other heroic elements. Nerd cred is basically a measure of how nerdy the song is, and may count nerdy elements beyond the comic book such as making references to trigonometry or Tolkien.

Phil South - Sword Girl Not all nerds like swords. But a lot of people do like swords, so this question's worth entertaining. ...

Notes

Is there a "Geek Manual"?Valid question, seeing as how there is a difference in the connotation of nerd versus geek. However, in the common parlance, nerd and geek are terms used interchangeably to classify people who have also been identified as brainiacs, dorks, dweebs, eggheads and spazzes. If you are unable to accept “nerd” as a catchall term for this social group, it is highly likely you are a nerd or a geek, but keep in mind that no one is forcing you to read this guide. (If someone is forcing you to read this guide, use this major flaw as an argument not to make you read it.)

A note on genderGiven that the majority of nerds are male, this manual will often refer to nerds with the male pronoun. This is not meant to marginalize female nerds, nor is it a statement about feminism, chauvinism, or any other -ism. It is simply a way to keep things simple.